Will replacing frames with undrawn foundation slow down potential swarming?

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Will replacing frames with undrawn foundation slow down potential swarming?

I have a big hive started last May that overwintered in 2 deeps. Two weeks ago I installed 2 new packages and donated 2 frames of honey / pollen with a tiny amount of brood, to each package. I took these from the outside edges of the top box in the big hive.
My question is will that slow down the impulse to swarm?
The hive is pretty well full with 8 frames of sealed brood, honey & pollen fill the rest. 2 of the 4 new frames are already drawn and filling.
I'm wondering if I should put a drawn super on top to see if they'll move some food upstairs and free up room for the queen to lay??
Or donate a frame of sealed brood to the packages to help them out and replace it with another undrawn frame??
Any thoughts out there??

What do you want more bees or more honey? If you are going to split do it now, assuming you have a flow. Right now you only have two deeps, that is not a big deal as far as hives go. I don't know what your goals are - where you want to be a few years from now. Splitting after a flow means you have to feed sugar or syrup to create an artificial flow. Not my style.

How so? Don't bees swarm essentially because there's no more space left for the queen to lay, and little room for additional stores of honey and pollen. How does adding foundation change this situation in the short term regardless of where it's placed. It seems you'd need to add empty drawn comb, add a brood box or do a split to really relieve the impulse to swarm.

Now I know I shouldn't mess with the broodnest too much, but what about moving some of the mostly capped brood downstairs and widen the brood nest there while pulling up some if the (less worked) outer frames from the bottom. These have mostly nectar and are only half drawn out. Will that encourage them to broaden out the broodnest? I am feeding them still although with the red maples in full bloom right now I was going to stop.

First you said you had two deeps and they were full. Now you are saying they are not full. I am not in favor of taking frames on the outside of one box and moving them to the center of another and it doesn't make sense to pull frames up to the outside of a new box. If the hive doesn't have space then give them space. If the hive has space leave them alone is my philosophy.

Stop feeding if they have plenty of stores they will swarm for sure. Do you have drones or drone brood ace keeps telling you to split but with no drones or drone brood unless you are going to buy a queen could doom you hive.

I don't think they will move honey up into an empty drawn box, but if you have 8 frames of brood and the rest of your two deeps is pretty full, it's time to move a frame of brood up and a frame of something else down to get them some brood space.

I believe that bees swarm when there is no place for the queen to lay AND there are plenty of stores, particularly a solid band of capped honey over the brood nest. If you don't have drawn comb the same size as the capped honey over the brood nest, you will have to find a way to get empty comb into the side of the brood nest. You can do this several ways, but if you want more bees, it's time to pull two frames of brood WITH the queen, a frame of honey and pollen, and a shake of bees off another brood frame into a nuc to start a new hive. Put a frame of foundation in the place of the frames you removed, pushing the frames with brood all together.

This will cause the big hive to make a new queen -- you may want to notch some cells with eggs in them to encourage them to make a large queen cell. You could also take a frame with foundation cut into "v"s and leave it in there long enough for the bees to start cells and the queen to lay some eggs and then do the split, they make nice queen cells on the side of the "v".

Otherwise you will have to move a frame with nectar or pollen into the brood nest and let them clear it for the queen.

Do a search on swarm prevention, it's an absolutely necessary thing, otherwise you never get honey because half your bees take off every spring.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I think I'm going to do a cut down split which I think will help the big hive, giving it a brood break. As I've read this type of split can maximize the honey gathering capability of the big hive. Is checker boarding the big hive a good idea in a split like this?
Anyone have experience with these kind of splits?

I may not remember my earlier experiences with bees in other parts of this country (USA), but, here in Tucson, Arizona, especially as our Spring flow begins, giving them foundationless frames, or frames of foundation, seems like they could easily be considered as if they were frames of comb, the bees quite literally build comb from either in about three days, on average. But I have seen them fill an empty foundationless frame, 2/3, overnight, and a frame with foundation (beeswax or plastic), even more completely in the same amount of time.

Michael, a little more on the timing of cut down splits please. After reading the info on your site I am wondering what are the possible effects if it is done to early?
This is my first spring and I am not exactly clear on the bloom dates, especially after this slow spring in Ct. although I have a Purple Flowering Plum tree in my front yard that looks to be about to pop open.
My gut told me to go for it so I did split Monday, although only into a 5 frame Nuc, it's all I had available. Today I have some more deeps and new frames, undrawn, and am considering moving them into a deep hive box and bringing more brood from the big hive over.
By now would you think they are already building emergency supercedure cells? I am hoping these will be easily spotted as I do not want to bring any of those over to the split.
Is that sound thinking or should I just leave well enough alone?

Last edited by JonnyBeeGood; 04-17-2013 at 10:31 AM.
Reason: Adjust name of tree